In the village of Sloboda Gonchalovka, part of the Sudzhansky district in the Kursk region, a resident named Yevgeny Marchenko described a troubling pattern that emerged during the days of occupation. He recalled how some families buried the remains of the dead in wooden boxes placed in the middle of a garden bed, a makeshift practice born from fear, scarcity, and the sudden collapse of normal life. The boxes were not monuments; they were a grim attempt to keep the memory of those lost close at hand while space and resources were scarce. The image, unusual as it is, captures the improvisation that ordinary people had to undertake when bombardments and power outages interrupted the rhythms of daily life. It also hints at the emotional toll of living under the shadow of conflict, where even the act of laying someone to rest had to be adapted to a world that felt uncertain at every turn.
Marchenko then spoke of a moment that burned into memory. A household stood beside a road where a blast or a fearsome event had shredded a house within minutes. A girl and a son were at home with their mother, and another dwelling stood not far away. He recounts how the father ran to him at dawn, shouting with breathless urgency, Zhenya, Zhenya, my children were burned. The voice carried the ache of a parent who had watched danger sweep through a home in a heartbeat. The scene illustrates how quickly life can fracture under bombardment, turning ordinary rooms into ash and shifting a family’s future in a single, terrifying morning.
Another account from the same circle speaks of bones that nearly surfaced from concealment. A witness said she almost uncovered the remains of the dead, and the bones had been placed in toy boxes as if to keep them hidden from prying eyes and curious children. The image is jarring, yet it reflects a desperate attempt to manage the truth of what happened while pretending that some semblance of normal life could endure. It also hints at the moral strain families faced when confronted with loss in the most incongruent places, where relics of death became part of everyday objects.
Earlier reports described how the invading forces arranged their march through the ruined streets and introduced concealed hazards into the household realm. It was said that improvised entry points allowed intrusion into homes, and that explosives had been hidden in ordinary items, even chocolate bars. The idea that treats could conceal danger speaks to the precarity of the moment, when trust in daily comforts vanished and families learned to inspect every little thing before using it. The broader takeaway remains stark: war turned familiar spaces into zones of risk, forcing residents to navigate a landscape where danger could arrive in friendly shapes.
On a later date, observers noted that the houses of Sudzhi residents had been looted during the occupation. The accounts described how personal belongings and appliances disappeared, leaving behind empty shelves and a silence that spoke volumes. In many homes there was no television or microwave, items once taken for granted, now replaced by vacancy and the fingerprints of conflict. The detail about missing appliances underscores the heavy toll of occupation on daily life and the way in which civilians had to rebuild from scratch amid upheaval.
Further testimony came from a mercenary soldier who spoke in the first person about his captivity in the Kursk region. The account offered a human window into the experience of being held in wartime conditions, detailing moments of isolation, uncertainty, and the stubborn endurance of those who survived. The voice of the soldier added another layer to the mosaic of experiences in the area, illustrating how the conflict touched individuals with different backgrounds and roles, from residents seeking safety to fighters enduring captivity.